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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Tuesday's Tip - The Snipping Tool for blogging

Just a few days ago I was introduced to a new handy tool for blogging. I was working on my timeline for Marcellus White, which I created as an Excel document. I wanted to include a screen shot for my blog post, but it needed to be crisp and clear and I didn't want pesky lines showing on my Excel document. My husband came to the rescue, showing me a handy tool: The Snipping Tool.

The Snipping Tool can be found on your Windows PC in the Accessories folder (beginning with Windows 7). This is a simple tool that allows you to create screen shots the easy way, without having to hit the PrtScn button and pasting into a separate program (although there are still times where this tip will be useful). With the Snipping Tool you simply draw a box around the portion of the screen you want to save and the program automatically allows you to save the selected portion as an image.

When you have decided on the screen view you want to save, open the Snipping Tool, select new and use the cursor to select the area you want.

The selected area then opens in the Snipping Tool window.

You now have the option to the save the file, email it, make notes on it or even highlight certain parts. Easy, and it cuts out several steps from the version I have been doing.

More more information check out this post on the tool at Microsoft.com.﻿

9 comments:

I love the Snipping Tool. I use it whenever I want to snag just a piece of a census record to highlight something in my blog. You can also create a jpeg image from a page in a PDF file - that's been REALLY handy.

Thanks for the tip. I never knew this tool was already on my computer. It was so easy to find and test. I'd just started to use Skitch which I learned about a recent genealogy Webinar and may stick with it as it also works on my IPad and allows me to save the clip on my computer or into Evernote (which I'm still trying to figure out how to maximize). Joannewww.shackfordgenealogy.weebly,com

One thing the Snipping Tool can't do is capture those pesky drop down menus and pop up things that explain toolbars and icons - 'cos as soon as you change your focus away from them they vanish. I downloaded Capture View (http://www.gxdevelopment.com/screen-capture.aspx), which lets you set a time delay on the snip it takes so you can grap these little things and use them in User Manuals and other instructions. I stick to the Snipping Tool for daily use though as it's so easy to use.